Genetics- Poetry

Question 1

“Genetics”

Answer 1

• Genetics
• Title
• it doesn’t appear in the poem, suggesting that family or support is not just limited to relatives.
• They are unique and different for everyone, individual problems inherited
• Can represent family or relationships bound together by family.

Question 2

“My father’s in my fingers, but my mother’s in my palms “

Answer 2

• Genetics
• Ceasura shows a physical seperation of the parents. They may be seperated in real life, but are united by this one person.
• Repetition of “My” shows the unification of the parents.
• Alliteration “f” “Father’s” “Fingers” on going thoughts.

Question 3

“Repelled to separate lands to separate hemisphere, may sleep with other lovers”

Answer 3

• Genetics
• “Repelled” connotations of magnets, maybe suggesting that it is controlled by fate.
• “Separate lands” The parents have been separated and don’t live in the same country but are brought together by the child.
• “May” Don’t guarantee that relationships will last, there is uncertainty.

Question 4

“With nothing left but friends who quarry for their image by a river”

Answer 4

• Genetics
• Imagery, emphasises togetherness
• Metaphor, looking for something that once was, fruitlessness. A quarry ends up in the mirror, is only a memory that will end up being taken away by the river.

Question 5

“I shape a chapel where a steeple stands”

Answer 5

• Genetics

- Imagery of a childhood game, wondering what will happen if they were married and together.

Question 6

“My body is their marriage register.

I re-enact their marriage with my hands.”

Answer 6

• Genetics
• The two shortest sentences in the poem.
• Not the literal, normal written way of making a marriage official and a child/ body is not legally binding. A child could be a form of unification for their parents, names on the birth certificate, both their “Genetics2 going through.

Question 7

“So take me with you, take up the skin’s demands

for mirroring in bodies of the future.”

Answer 7

• Genetics
• “You” direct address, to someone not the general reading public.
• “Skin’s demands” it is a natural thing hat happens and not always a discussion and is up to fate and there can be a change in destiny.
• “Mirroring bodies of the future” Wants kids, looking forward to the future, has some form of hope, may be inevitable for her.

Question 8

“I bequeath my fingers”

Answer 8

• Genetics

- Leaving behind a part of her, focusing on the physical aspects, not the inward genetics.

Question 9

Is an extended metaphor

Answer 9

• Genetics

- Hands are an example of something physical that are passed down from the parents.